All across the world, people are doing everything that they can to avoid suffering. Some are taking the short view, trying to manage their pain with food, chemicals and addictions. Others are taking a longer-acting strategy, focusing on the pillars of health, wealth and success. But ultimately, none of these strategies can avoid grief and pain entirely. Eventually, something will give, something will break, and life will be difficult for a while.
Different cultures have different things to say about grief, suffering and loss. Some try to massage over the difficulty of the experience, telling followers to let go of their desire to live happily. Others brush it under the rug and pretend it’s not there. But, in this post, we’re going to take a look at what God says about it and how we can use it to further ourselves in our faith.
Remembering That Jesus Knows About Suffering
The first thing we can do is use our grief to deepen our understanding of God. It’s clear that God also went through a traumatic experience of His own on the cross with Jesus. It reminds us that God isn’t averse to pain and accepts as part of His existence.
Be Patient
We also want a quick fix to our suffering sometimes but that’s not God’s way either. It’s worth remembering, therefore, that grief is a process – something that can last a long time. It’s not about leveraging God to “check grief off the list” of things that we need to do. It’s about using grief to develop a deeper relationship to our faith and understanding of God’s nature.
Invite Others In
At the last supper, Jesus knew the path that lay before him. But he didn’t go through it alone. Instead, He invited his friends and disciples to come and dine with Him so that He didn’t have to be alone.
We can take solace in this, knowing that we are allowed to approach others for help when things get tough. In today’s society, you’re able to lean on all sorts of people to help manage the process for you. Get friends and family to gather around in your time of need. And ask yourself, what are funeral homes allowed to do? They can often take away many of the practical burdens for you, freeing you up to grieve.
Keep A Perspective On Suffering
Suffering is something that has been with humanity throughout our entire history. It’s something that everyone who has ever lived has had to deal with. It’s worth bearing this fact in mind. We live in a broken world and the Bible says that we will inevitably meet all kinds of trials involving death and suffering. The trick is to remember throughout it all that God will eventually put an end to suffering. Anything that you are experiencing today is ultimately only temporary. Things will eventually be resolved and you’ll become free from the tribulations that you are experiencing right now. The hope is that Jesus’ suffering will free us from sin that creates the broken world in which we live.
This is a contributed post.